Women's Community Health Worker Service (WCHW)

Buckinghamshire Council's Public Health team have commissioneda Women's Community Health Worker Service on a pilot basis for 3 years only. The aim of the Service is to improve the health and well-being outcomes of women (including women from key ethnic groups) living within the most deprived areas of Aylesbury and High Wycombe in Buckinghamshire before, during and after their pregnancies. This will be achieved through recruiting and training five whole time equivalent Women’s Community Health Workers to provide a range of targeted one-to-one, group and community-based activities that meet the needs of this population.

Community health workers are defined by the World Health Organisation (WHO) as:

“Providers who live in the community they serve and receive lower levels of formal education and training than professional health care workers such as nurses and doctors. This human resource group has enormous potential to extend services to vulnerable populations, such as communities living in remote areas and historically marginalized people, to meet unmet health needs in a culturally appropriate manner, improve access to services, address inequities in health status and improve health system performance and efficiency.”

Community Health Workers will perform a variety of duties, across the four key themes (educational, navigational, support and intelligence), whilst working closely with voluntary and community sector colleagues, primary care, maternity, health visitors, public health, adult social care, community mental health teams and the Family Nurse Partnership.